The Ancestors Page 7

  “Sounds like you’ve got a customer,” Rashid yawned, totally fatigued from staring at the tenth lit match Abe Morgan held before him.

  “Close your mind to the outside world. The match is your focus. It is your inner world, and you are the flame that wants to be at peace. I beat you on the mats today because you weren’t focused. Remember, mind, body, spirit . . . the trinity. Pray for mental strength, then ask the flame to extinguish itself.”

  When the chime sounded again, Rashid looked past Abe toward the front of the store, and allowed his vision to settle on the thin shadow that was cast against the drawn door shade.

  “How’re you gonna stay in business if you don’t let customers in during business hours, and you keep the blinds shut?”

  “Don’t need but a few customers a month to stay in business to pay property taxes. The store is paid for, and I don’t eat that much. I’ve put up the vegetables I grow in the backyard in mason jars for the whole winter, and don’t use that many utilities—they can shut off gas and electric, for all I care. Got a wood burning stove and fireplace for heat, and oil lamps for light. My water bill is nominal. Any more questions about my livelihood can wait. Now concentrate!”

  Rashid just shook his head when his peevish instructor finished the diatribe, and tried to force his mind to grapple with the flame, to no avail. His nerves suddenly felt on edge, as though an electric current was running through him. He’d felt bouts of that same surge all day. It was like something indefinable was calling him, robbing him of even the slightest level of tranquility.

  On the third ring, Abe blew out the match and stood with annoyance. “You are too easily distracted, and don’t think that I can’t tell when you’re just tired. You give in to your physical urges too easily. This ain’t about my customer. This is about you not wanting to put in the effort it takes. Now, when I get rid of this person, we will begin where we left off. Take five, and be ready when I come back to this chair.”

  As Abe paced away from the table in the back of the room, Rashid could feel his muscles relaxing. The old man was a veritable tyrant. Why he was subjecting himself to this insanity made no sense. But curiosity had a stranglehold on him. The old man was talking about traveling through time. So, if he had to endure the absurd for a few days to see if that could actually happen, he was game.

  Mental and physical fatigue pulled at him hard, making him want to just curl into a ball like a lazy cat, and take a late afternoon nap in the warm sun coming through the edges of the window shades.

  True to his word, Abe Morgan had worked him like a mule all day . . . cleaning, and stretching, and praying, and making every surface in the place gleam with new energy. Odd, but even in the daytime, he could still see muted swirls of opalescent light dancing off the polished surfaces and playing cheerful tricks with his vision. He’d never been able to see them during the day before, nor had he ever experienced being bodily tossed to the floor so easily by an elderly man, which had a lot to do with his decision to endure Abe Morgan’s lessons.

  If nothing else, he wanted to know how he’d done that, and perhaps more importantly, he was now curious about the old man’s true age. He’d stay and take this unnecessary abuse only until he found out, then he’d be gone, he told himself. Abe had promised him that he’d get the answer only when he could beat him on the mats. That seemed fair enough, and probably wouldn’t take him that long. All he needed to do was to regain his strength after being in the cold for so long . . . a day or two, at best. Maybe the shades had weakened him? It was all too odd. But if he was weakened somehow, it certainly didn’t make sense to go back out on the streets, so vulnerable that an old man could best him. So, for showing him that, he did owe the old buzzard a bit of gratitude. But the mats and this new match trick had become a man-to-man challenge that he wanted to meet. Abe Morgan could light a match and just by staring at it he could make it go out. He had to learn what was behind that.

  Ignoring the sound of the locks being turned, Rashid struck another match and stared at the tiny flame, determined to make it go out as simply as Abe had done with his demonstration of sheer will of conviction backed up by prayer. Heat began to permeate his fingertips, but he kept his vision on the base of the flame, which crept down the stem of the matchstick.

  The collision in his skull of a familiar female voice with Abe’s connected simultaneously with the flame and his peripheral vision. The match went out. Rashid stood, still holding the half-burned matchstick between his fingers as his vision swept the front of the store. He didn’t move, not sure which sensory perception held him most in awe—the sight of the extinguished match, or the sound of the woman’s voice.

  “Aw c’mon, Pop,” the female voice at the front of the store pleaded, “we’ve been through this a hundred times, if once. Grandma’s house is only a few blocks around the corner on Twenty-first and Fitzwater, and—”

  “I know where Ethel lived, and, for the one hundredth time, you don’t need to be selling off her life. Y’all young people don’t have no appreciation for history, time, or what’s good for you.”

  “But I can’t live in there with her stuff and my stuff. Nobody else will take it.”

  “Nobody else is supposed to take it. Belongs in there! Protects you.”

  Rashid watched the two dicker about the merits of keeping or discarding possessions, totally oblivious to their words . . . captivated by the young woman drenched with sunlight in the doorway. The way the light hit her, and Mr. Morgan’s body blocked her, he couldn’t be sure—but the voice was immediately recognizable. When she looked past Abe, into the shop, Rashid’s perception was confirmed. Her tense expression melted into a half smile.

  “Okay, Pop,” she said begrudgingly. Her shoulders sagged a bit with the defeat. “I’m sorry, sir,” she added, looking in Rashid’s direction, “if I interrupted your conversation. I’ll come back another time when you don’t have a customer, Pop.”

  Then she waved at Rashid.

  Abe Morgan cast his gaze between the two and scoffed. “Oh, Rashid ain’t no customer. He’s my, er, new help. Well, new and old—was helping me just sweep before and was good on security, but I’ma teach him more. I’m getting on in years, don’t have to tell you that, and need somebody around here to help me tend the store. Was just training him on how things go.” Abe glanced at the unlit match that Rashid held between his fingers, then looked Aziza over thoroughly. “At least come in and have a seat,” he said without facing her. “Shouldn’t discuss business out on the street.”

  Aziza paused and tilted her head to the side, studying Rashid hard. “This is the same guy who used to sweep up for you, Pop?” She looked from Rashid to her grandfather. “The same guy who sells papers outside my building, right?”

  “Yeah,” Rashid said flatly and oddly hating that she’d made the connection. He also hated the way she looked at him like he was a different person, now that he was squeaky clean, and it pissed him off that she had the audacity to openly speak of it. Previous conversations between her and her grandfather about him being in the shop had been strained. Today he didn’t want things to go in that direction. She left him conflicted—pissed off and mesmerized at the same time.

  “Rashid is good people,” Abe Morgan said with a sly half smile. “Told you that, but you stubborn like your grandma was. He cleans up real good, like I said. Been real consistent for about a year and I’m showing him some of the business of antiquing, if that’s all right with you, Miss Lawyer.”

  Rashid’s gaze locked with the older man’s for a moment before he stepped away from the table to offer the young woman a seat. A knot had formed in his throat that only allowed him to nod at the woman who had just referred to him as “sir.” Never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined that she gave a second thought to the person she bought her morning newspapers from on the street.

  As she neared the table, her smile opened to full brilliance and she extended her hand easily. “Aziza. Guess we got off on the wrong foot t
he few times I was here . . . have to be protective of family. Nice to see you again, and glad Pop has someone trustworthy in here to help him. Now, if you can just convince him to take a look at my grandmother’s furniture, I’ll be indebted to you for life.”

  Rashid allowed the smooth warmth of her hand to connect with his. Just as he’d always imagined. Her palm was like rich buttercream against his before it ignited the rest of his senses. Still too stunned to speak, he stifled a shudder of pleasure, smiled and nodded again before looking down at the table.

  “Let me get this mess out of your way, so your coat sleeves don’t get dirty,” he managed to rasp out, refusing to look in her direction, or at Abe Morgan. Just like that, he’d learned her name . . . after serious prayer about it . . . after being cleaned up and cleaned out . . . just like Abe Morgan told him.

  “It’s fine,” she insisted, plopping herself down and smiling broader. “Don’t make a fuss for me. I’m just here on a quick visit and trying to plead my case with my very stubborn grandfather—it runs in our family.”

  It hadn’t been lost on him that his usually opinionated instructor had become very quiet, and had walked toward the stove without turning around. However, instinct told him that every move he made now, and every thought he had, Abe Morgan was watching from a curious spectator’s position. Continuing to over-clean the table area, Rashid allowed the delicate scent of her perfume to intoxicate him as he worked around her.

  Aziza watched the two men share the space as though in a pre-rehearsed waltz. But she couldn’t force her gaze away from the younger of them . . . something about his voice . . . and the brief encounter with his eyes . . . there was something electric that she’d never fully experienced until this moment—it had occurred when she shook his hand. And he was absolutely breathtaking . . . tall, dark, finely sculpted chocolate, reeking with a quiet magnetism that almost made her forget why she’d stopped by the store. None of that had been visible to her before.

  Clearing her throat to regain her poise, she wrenched her attention from the younger man to her grandfather. “Well, can we at least discuss it?”

  “You still drinking that poison, coffee, or can I make you some herbal tea?”

  Aziza chuckled and shrugged her shoulders. “Tea will be fine, Pop.”

  “Don’tchu know that caffeine is bad for your skin?” he grumbled without turning around. “Not to mention the strain it puts on your other vital organs.”

  “Yes, sir,” she laughed easily, “but I got hooked on it in college. So, what’s a girl to do?”

  “Try some of them cleansers I tol’ ya about. Get control of your urges and master your fate.”

  Aziza cut a half glance toward Rashid and let a sly smile create a lopsided expression on her face to make him chuckle. “Has he been on you too, or is it just me that he harasses?”

  Feeling more at ease in her presence, Rashid shook his head no and let out a long breath in a way that seemed to amuse her, and took the seat across from her. “Oh, believe me, you are not alone.”

  For a moment they stared at each other, glimpsed Abe Morgan’s back, then let out a peal of laughter at the table. Her mirth covered him, seeped inside of him, and fused with her voice down into the marrow in his bones. It had been so long since he’d laughed, deep belly-laughed, that he found the corners of his eyes becoming moist from the sheer release of emotion.

  As Abe made his way to the table with two cups of a nasty brew that he claimed to be tea, Rashid breathed deeply through his nose to stifle his response. But as soon as he and Aziza looked at each other again, they burst out laughing.

  “Okay, okay,” she giggled, waving her hand in Rashid’s direction, her self-composure out of reach, “I’ll try some of your tea.”

  Her hands shook with repressed giggles as she brought the cup to her mouth. Rashid watched her lips caress the side of the china, and he briefly closed his eyes to ward off the new awareness that she was causing him to experience. Abe Morgan did not appear to be amused, and simply folded his arms over his chest, which threatened to make them both laugh again. When the bridge of her nose wrinkled at the taste of the dark liquid in her cup, that was it, Rashid doubled over and howled outright with laughter.

  “Pop,” she apologized, still giggling, “I’m sorry, but this tastes like that stuff Ma Ethel used to make me drink when I was little and had a cold. How do you do this every day?”

  “It’ll clean you out,” the old man said in a huff, sitting down heavily on a tall stool next to the chair Rashid had taken. “And will keep you healthy and alive.”

  Seeming to lose patience, the elderly man turned his attention to Rashid. “And you could use another dose yourself. Once you get the toxins out, you can move from medicinals to better flavors.”

  Again, the two young people stared at each other for a moment and tried their best not to laugh. Aziza gave up first, closely followed by Rashid.

  “For real, Pop,” she said, trying to squelch her laughter, “I appreciate your herbal remedies. But I really need your help with moving Ma’s furniture. Can you use any of it?”

  “Nope,” the old man said plainly, looking her dead in the eyes. “Ethel is all in that house, keepin’ things static-free. She polished and anointed every stick of that furniture almost every day she was alive. She kept the place swept out, and after all that bad business was over, there wasn’t no more problems in that place. You go to movin’ her energy and prayers out, and it’ll leave room for somethin’ else to come in. I won’t be a party to it. Hear? Won’t have her haunting me for leaving her grandbaby unprotected.”

  “Then I guess I’m going to have to just give it away to the Salvation Army,” she said with a sigh. “I hate to do it, but I can’t live in there with those memories. You of all people should understand that, Pop.”

  Rashid glanced at Abe Morgan then back to Aziza, only to watch a slow sadness eclipse her once joyous expression, and his mouth formed words without asking his brain for consent. “Maybe you’re supposed to keep your grandma around you, Princess.”

  As soon as the words had tumbled from his lips, he regretted the comment, because she stared at him for a moment, almost shook off his statement with a physical shrug, then just nodded, stood, and extended her hand. Rashid immediately stood and accepted her palm into his, holding it for a moment longer than necessary before allowing it to withdraw.

  “I can’t,” was all that she said, hugging her grandfather while still staring at Rashid. “But thanks a lot for the good company, good cheer, and the tea,” she added as she walked toward the door. “I understand.”

  Again, words stopped in his throat. He could only nod.

  When she paused and walked back toward them, he nearly held his breath.

  “I’ve always admired this piece,” she said quietly, passing them and approaching the large, silver-framed mirror next to their table. “Pop, if you ever decide to part with it, promise me, you’ll call me first.”

  An opalescent light from within the center of the object seemed to reach out and caress the outer edges of her body, merging with the light that she already emanated on her own. Rashid blinked to try to clear his vision, but he saw what he saw, and the spectacle of dancing lights wouldn’t go away.

  “Tol’ ya a long time ago, it ain’t for sale, and won’t never be for sale and you gotta wait till I die to get it, baby,” her grandfather huffed, standing and walking toward the mirror to throw a cover over it. “Was passed down through generations. But I, unlike you, appreciate the history of things.”

  Rashid watched her carefully as her hand hovered just over the surface of the cover as the lights receded. Her eyes seemed distant, and her voice took on a mesmerizing vacant quality.

  “What did you say?” she asked, not turning in their direction.

  “I said—” her grandfather began, then stopped as she waved her hand.

  “No, I was talking to Rashid,” she nearly whispered. “He asked me a question. Do I know you, other than
from your newspaper post . . . we’ve met before that . . . before you came to help Pop in this shop, haven’t we?”

  Again, both men looked at each other and remained silent for a moment.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Rashid said awkwardly, his eyes darting between Abe Morgan and Aziza. “And I don’t think we’ve ever met . . . I would have remembered.”

  Turning to face them, her expression was puzzled. “But you did say my name, then something else I couldn’t hear. What did you say?”

  “Uh, I forgot what I was going to say,” Rashid lied, not looking at her, but reading the warning expression in Mr. Abe’s eyes. “Wasn’t important.”

  Aziza let out her breath in a long sigh and shrugged, then walked toward the door, telling them to have a nice day as she opened it.

  All he could do was to watch her slip through the entrance and out into the dimming sunlight. Rashid sat down and looked at his tea, then lit a match and turned his attention on it without saying anything to Abe Morgan.

  “I’ma let you be for the rest of the day,” his instructor said quietly, moving the tea away from him. “But, maybe we’ve been approaching this the wrong way . . . why don’t you take one that hasn’t been struck, pray, then try to light it?”

  Rashid didn’t look in Abe Morgan’s direction, but blew out the match he was holding and picked up a new, unlit one. He closed his eyes, said a prayer, and thought of how her hand had ignited the senses within him. Immediately he heard a small pop and felt an intense heat.

  “Open your eyes, son,” his instructor murmured. “It’s lit. Very good.”

  Staring at the flame between his fingers until it nearly reached his skin, Rashid allowed himself to become the blue light at the base of the fire. When the heat threatened to burn him, he willed it to self-extinguish.

  Abe Morgan smiled. “Later, I’ll sleep down here in the back of the store tonight, you take the second floor. You’ll most likely be needing your privacy. Just change my sheets in the morning, is all I ask . . . don’t dream too hard.”